Tag: infrastructure

Climate extremists claim responsibility for blackout affecting 50,000 households

A group of self-described climate activists has claimed responsibility for a massive power outage that hit five districts in southwestern Berlin, saying the action targeted the fossil fuel industry and “the rich.”

Up to 50,000 households and 2,200 commercial entities were affected by the blackout in the early hours of Saturday, a spokesman for the local electricity provider, Stromnetz Berlin, told the Berliner Zeitung. “Full restoration of power supply” is expected no sooner than January 8, according to the company. The residents of the affected areas would have to remain without power in “freezing temperatures” ranging from -7C to -1C, the paper reported.

Police are treating the incident as a targeted arson attack, according to local media. The blackout was caused by a blaze that hit a power bridge over the Teltow Canal, which goes through the southern part of the city. Several nursing homes and elderly care centers had to be evacuated because of the incident, according to a local fire department. No casualties have been reported in connection to the incident.

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California Faces Fuel Disaster As Refineries And Gas Stations Shut Down

The Democrat crusade to divert blame for the stagflation crisis triggered during the Biden Administration led them down a path of economic lies.  The central theme of their narrative was that corporations were “price gouging” consumers and inflation was actually a product of “corporate greed.”  In reality, helicopter money and dollar devaluation during the pandemic triggered a massive consumer demand rush as well as shortages in a variety of goods and raw materials.

The profit margins in many of these industries were paper thin as their manufacturing and labor costs skyrocketed, yet Democrats tried to scapegoat them anyway.  The word “accountability” is not in the leftist vocabulary.

We are only now starting to witness the aftermath of the legislation and policies put in place by blue states as a means to control prices.  California under Governor Gavin Newsom may have staged its own economic demise (the final nail in the coffin) after laws were passed requiring even greater state interference into oil refineries and gas stations.

Gavin Newsom ‘s major refinery law, ABX2-1 (signed Oct 2024), gives the state power to mandate minimum fuel storage levels and control refinery maintenance to prevent price spikes, empowering the California Energy Commission (CEC) to stabilize supply. This builds on earlier efforts (like SB X1-2) creating an oil market watchdog (DPMO) to increase oversight, aiming to stop refiners from manipulating supply for profit, while also adding data reporting requirements for companies.

In response, companies are shutting down refinery operations in the state.

Lawmakers in California at both the state and federal levels are warning that refinery closures could push prices higher while leaving the state more dependent on foreign oil.  At the center of the warning is the planned shutdown of two major refineries: Valero’s Benicia facility and Phillips 66’s Los Angeles plant. Together, the closures would eliminate nearly 20% of California’s in-state refining capacity.

Experts suggest prices could go as high as $10-$12 per gallon as a result of the supply squeeze, spreading outside of CA to Arizona and Nevada. Republican lawmakers say that the loss of in-state production threatens not only consumer prices at the pump but also the state’s military readiness; a matter of national security. 

The refineries make jet fuel and diesel and gasoline for military bases across California.  California is home to more than 30 military bases, many of which rely on fuel refined in-state.  Gavin Newsom has mostly dismissed concerns as exaggeration, asserting that foreign shipments of fuel will fill the supply gap.  He argued in a recent statement:

“The claim that California policies pose a national security risk isn’t grounded in fact. The state has proactively engaged defense fuel customers throughout this energy transition, and no credible concerns have been raised about future fuel supply for the military. California is leading this transition responsibly while ensuring families have access to a safe, reliable, and affordable supply of transportation fuels…” 

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Massive power blackout leaves at least a third of San Francisco in darkness

A massive outage has knocked out power to 130,000 homes and businesses across San Francisco, leaving at least one-third of the city in darkness.

The power failure left a large swath of the northern part of the city in the dark on Saturday, beginning with the Richmond and Presidio neighborhoods and areas around Golden Gate Park.

Social media posts and local media reported mass closures of restaurants and shops and darkened street lights and Christmas decorations.

The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management said on X there were ‘significant transit disruptions’ happening citywide and urged residents to avoid nonessential travel and treat down traffic signals as four-way stops.

The city’s transportation agencies said they were bypassing some Muni bus and BART train stations because of the power outages.

At least some of the blackouts were caused by a fire that broke out inside a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) substation at 8th and Mission streets.

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Ukraine Energy Sector in Permanent Crisis Due to Relentless Russian Strikes – Daily Power Cuts Affecting All Regions

‘Hello, darkness, my old friend’.

Ukraine’s energy sector is living under extreme circumstances, as the constant Russian drone and missile attacks wreak havoc in the country’s power generation and transmission.

The biggest private energy provider is living in permanent crisis, according to its chief executive.

BBC reported:

“Most of Ukraine is suffering from lengthy power cuts as temperatures drop and Maxim Timchenko, whose company DTEK provides power for 5.6 million Ukrainians, says the intensity of strikes has been so frequent ‘we just don’t have time to recover’.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that Russia knew the winter cold could become one of its most dangerous weapons.”

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Ukrainians Attack Druzhba Oil Pipeline Again, Threatening Energy Supplies to Hungary and Slovakia

The pipeline war is ongoing.

On Monday (1), Ukrainian forces hit the Druzhba (‘Friendship’) oil pipeline in Russia’s central Tambov region, according to Kiev’s military intelligence source.

Reuters reported:

“It was the fifth Ukrainian attack on the pipeline which supplies Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia, according to Reuters calculations.

Hungary and Slovakia continue to buy energy supplies from Russia, even after other European Union nations cut ties following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.”

Officials in Slovakia and Hungary said that oil supplies through Druzhba were running normally.

“Ukraine attacked the pipeline once in March, twice in August and once in September this year.”

Hungary’s Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Peter Szijjarto said that the attack against the Druzhba oil pipeline inflicted ‘insignificant damage’.

TASS reported:

“[Russian officials] informed Szijjarto in detail ‘about attacks against the Druzhba oil pipeline’, the minister said at a brief press conference streamed by M1 television. ‘Attacks inflicted just minor damage to the oil pipeline owing to actions of the Russian defense’, Szijjarto said.”

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Explosion Rocks Part Of Russia’s Strategic Druzhba Pipeline – All Caught On Camera

While Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are in Moscow working to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, a series of attacks on Russia-linked oil tankers unfolded both before and during their visit. Now, reports are also emerging of an explosion along the Druzhba oil pipeline.

On Wednesday morning, Kyiv Post cited sources in Ukraine’s Military Intelligence (HUR) that reported an explosion struck the Druzhba (“Friendship”) oil pipeline – one of Europe’s most important energy arteries, which moves roughly 1.2 to 1.5 million barrels per day from Russia through Belarus and Ukraine into Central Europe.

Kyiv Post said an incendiary explosive device detonated on the pipeline near Kazynskiye Vyselki along the Taganrog-Lipetsk segment. The outlet cited residents who heard the powerful blast.

Per the outlet:

The source said the strike took place near Kazynskiye Vyselki, along the Taganrog-Lipetsk section of the pipeline. A HUR official familiar with the operation said the blast was triggered by a remotely detonated explosive fitted with incendiary compounds to intensify the fire.

Footage of the incident has emerged on X…

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“It’s Utilities Versus Rent” – Data Centers Send Energy Prices Soaring

The surge in data center construction to power today’s AI and cloud computing demands has sent electricity prices skyrocketing over the last few years. And, as Bloomberg reports, it is only getting worse.

With electricity costs now as much as 267% higher compared to five years ago in some parts of the US, fingers are being pointed directly at data center activity for blame. And while some – especially generously funded lobbies – are eager to dissemble and distort, claiming that on the contrary, electricity prices are barely keeping up with inflation and that data centers have little to no impact on electrical bills, the map below shows that more than 70% of the nodes that recorded pricing increases are located within 50 miles of significant data center activity.

Take Nicole Pasture: the Baltimore resident said her utility bills are up 50% over the past year. She is also a judge who rules on rental disputes in the city’s district court and sees people struggling with their power bills.

“It’s utilities versus rent,” she said. “They want to stay in their home, but they also want to keep their lights on.”

New data center construction projects are announced weekly, sometimes every day. Some of the construction timelines have upwards of 100 MW of new data center demand being built only two years from groundbreaking. This has to be contrasted against the rate of new energy generation construction, with the recent vite among PJM Interconnection stakeholders resulting in a failure to even select a plan for how to add data centers to the grid. 

“The voting reflects the nearly impossible challenge of trying to ensure resource adequacy and control ratepayer costs, while also allowing data center development in a market that is already short on generation supply and faces a 5-to-7 year timeline to bring on new large-scale generating resources,” Jon Gordon, a director at Advanced Energy United, a clean energy trade group, said in a bulletin on the meeting.

While some utilities have been able to pass the burden of higher electricity costs onto the owners of the large loads, most of the costs of expanding grid capacity inevitably find their way to consumers.

According to Bloomberg, in northern Virginia, Dominion Energy cited data center demand, inflation and higher fuel costs when asking regulators to raise its customer bills by about $20 a month for the average residential user over the next two years. Dominion also forecasts peak demand would rise by more than 75% by 2039 with data centers. It would be just 10% without.

And it’s only getting worse: with hundreds of gigawatts of future power demand from data centers built by companies like Oracle and Microsoft, Goldman writes that “eight out of the 13 US regional power markets are already at or below critical spare capacity levels.”

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Report: U.S. Is the World’s Largest Debtor to China — Thanks to Amazon, Disney, and Tesla

A report published on Tuesday by the AidData research lab at William & Mary university in Williamsburg, Virginia, found that the United States is the largest recipient of loans from China.

The report, entitled Chasing China: Learning to Play by Beijing’s Global Lending Rules, found that 1,193 Chinese banks, investment companies, and government institutions loaned $2.2 trillion to recipients in 179 countries between 2000 and 2023.

AidData researchers drew two surprising conclusions from their research: “China’s overseas lending portfolio is vastly larger than previously understood,” and its loans to the developed world are an order of magnitude larger than widely believed.

The common image of Chinese loans is banks pumping huge loans to Third World countries through China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The ostensible purpose of BRI was to help developing countries build vital infrastructure, but the projects are often criticized as unprofitable “debt traps” approved by spendthrift local governments that saddle the borrowing nations with debts to Beijing they can never repay.

Whatever the flaws of BRI might be, AidData determined that only about 20 percent of China’s titanic lending portfolio involves infrastructure projects in developing nations. Meanwhile, the amount China loans to developed nations “skyrocketed from 12% to 76%” between 2000 and 2023. Ten of the top 20 destinations for Chinese loans are “high-income” countries.

“Another major discovery is that Chinese state-owned creditors have bankrolled approximately 10,000 projects and activities in 72 high-income countries to the tune of nearly $1 trillion,” the report said.

“Much of the lending to wealthy countries is focused on critical infrastructure, critical minerals, and the acquisition of high-tech assets like semiconductor companies,” noted AidData’s lead author, Brad Parks.

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Data centers encounter local pushback amid major growth

At least 16 data center projects, worth a combined $64 billion, have been blocked or delayed as local opposition mounts to the developments, according to a new study.

Research collected by Data Center Watch shows that residents and politicians across seven states have stopped or stalled the data center projects.

In Arizona’s West Valley, development company Tract withdrew plans for a $14 billion project after city officials declined to approve required rezoning. Tract eventually announced a similar project in Buckeye, Ariz., where the development is proceeding.

In Peculiar, Mo., and Chesterton, Ind., residents and local officials also blocked data center developments worth billions.

In total, the study found that six data center developments have been fully blocked since May 2024. The backlash has also delayed 10 other data centers, including two from Amazon.

Nine of the documented data center blockages and delays have occurred in Virginia, the world’s unofficial data center capital, according to the research firm.

The study’s authors also found growing bipartisan aversion to the behemoth data center projects: about 55 percent of Republicans and 45 percent of Democrats in districts with large data center projects have taken public positions against the developments, according to the study.

“This cross-party resistance defies expectations and marks a rare area of bipartisan alignment in infrastructure politics,” the authors wrote.

The report also found that data centers were becoming an intensifying issue in local politics. As energy costs soar and affordability takes center stage, it’s likely more candidates and elected officials will take sides on the projects.

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Germany to funnel more cash into Ukraine’s corruption-plagued energy sector

Germany has pledged to provide Ukraine with an additional €40 million in an effort to prop up its power generation during the winter, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has said. The announcement comes as Ukraine’s energy industry finds itself mired in a corruption scandal allegedly linked to an ally of leader Vladimir Zelensky.

Speaking on Tuesday, Wadephul said Berlin was “helping Ukrainians survive another winter of war with an additional €40 million ($46 million).” The diplomat noted that this year alone Germany has already spent €9 billion on military aid for Kiev.

A day earlier, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) announced that it was investigating a “high-level criminal organization” which allegedly profited from contracts involving state-owned nuclear energy company Energoatom.

According to the authorities, the ring forced Energoatom officials and contractors to pay kickbacks for state contracts. Formal charges have so far been brought against seven unnamed individuals. The Ukrainian media has claimed that one of the suspects is Timur Mindich, a close associate and former business partner of Zelensky. The businessman allegedly fled Ukraine just hours before his home was raided by NABU agents.

Mindich’s personal and business ties to the Ukrainian leader are understood to date back to when Zelensky was actively involved in the entertainment industry.

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